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[AoXoMoXoA]

In MC lingo, what exactly is the difference between these two tags?

If I use 'Fill Properties from Filename' using Date it gives the full date (year-month-day), but when Date is used to 'Rename Filename from Properties' it gives a four digit year only.

To achieve the four digit Year I desire when using 'Fill Properties from Filename' it only seems to work using [Year] instead of [Date].

So why does it Rename in four-digit year only format when Renaming using [Date] instead of [Year]?

What is the proper intended use of the [Date] and [Year] tags in filiing and renaming?

[HiFiTubes]

IIRC, [Date] seems to be a Windows file timestamp? Maybe more useful for images?

[AoXoMoXoA]

Perhaps I should have mentioned that I am tagging mixed files, a "record album" of both music and images at the same time. The tracks and pics are placed into a single folder, and MC's fill tags/rename from are used to tag and move the "album" to it's properly named folders in the library.

I can understand wanting a full time/date format on photo's, but there seems to be an inconsistency in how [Date] works in the "Fill tags from" and the "Rename files from" functions.

[Matt]

There's only one date: [Date].  [Year] is simply calculated from whatever is in the [Date] field.

(there are also file times like [Date Modified], [Date Created], but these are unrelated)

[AoXoMoXoA]

There's only one date: [Date].  [Year] is simply calculated from whatever is in the [Date] field.

(there are also file times like [Date Modified], [Date Created], but these are unrelated)

So then I should use [YEAR] to result in a four-digit year-only date in my tags and filenames?


This confusion arises occasionally when I must reinstall Windows as I am forced to recreate my MC options and settings. Since this is (hopefully) not a frequent occurrance I get fuzzy on the proper one to use.

Gee I wish there was a Complete backup of MC including settings and such built in.   

[Matt]

The goal is that you can always use [Date].

[Year] is mostly a legacy thing.

[AoXoMoXoA]

The goal is that you can always use [Date].

[Year] is mostly a legacy thing.

OK great, but when I do use Date, because there are additional numbers and symbols there from "Fill properties from filename" when I later use "Rename files from properties" it is creating extra layers of directories from the month/year formatting. So instead of getting Music\Artist Name\Album (Date) I end up with something like Music\Artist Name\Album\10\(2003) with '10' being an example of the month

[MusicHawk]

I don't think DATE can always be substituted for YEAR because it forces a degree of precision that often is not known or knowable, therefore not correct.

There are many times when when the need is to tag something ONLY at the YEAR level.

For instance, it is standard for music, TV and movies to be identified by the YEAR of release, but often not the month and rarely the day of the month. So the ability to specify just the 4-digit YEAR is mandatory. Fortunately, this seems to be possible by using the YEAR field.

However, there's a side-effect that can be a problem. Apparently, MC actually assigns a full date when only the YEAR is entered. It seems to default to 01-01-YEAR. Perhaps this is an understandable internal need, but it bolts-in an incorrect date, and thereafter, the only way to know it's not the real full date is to surmise based on it being the "odd" date of 01-01-.

This hasn't bothered me with music, TV and movies because I would rarely if ever know or care about anything but the YEAR.

But for tagging photos, it is already getting crazy. It's common to have only a partial (year-only, or year-month-only) date for an old photo. If I have a picture of my grandparents on a summer adventure and I'm pretty sure they always did that in July and I know this photo was 1960, I'd like to tag it as July 1960, and not have MC force it to be July 1, 1960 which forever would be a wrong fact about the photo. But partial dates don't seem possible, probably because there is date validation built into date fields.

One workaround I'm considering is to create custom fields for year and month (but it has to be different names like YR and MO) and not identify these to MC as date fields.